Objective: Aging studies regularly assume that years of education are a protective factor for baseline cognition. In developing countries with specific sociocultural issues, this relationship may not work as expected, and an unmet need remains for alternative resilience factors. This study aimed to analyze different moderators for the relationship between aging and general cognition that could reflect better protective factors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Translate, transcultural adaptation and application to Brazilian Portuguese of the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study - Activities of Daily Living (ADCS-ADL) scale as a cognitive screening instrument.
Method: We applied the back translation added with pretest and bilingual methods. The sample was composed by 95 elderly individuals and their caregivers.
Objective: To compare the results of neuropsychological tests, evoked potentials N200 and P300 and polymorphisms of ApoE and BDNF rs6265 between patients with normal cognition and those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's dementia (AD).
Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of elderly individuals with normal cognition and those with MCI and AD, who were submitted to evoked potential tests (N200 and P300) by means of hearing stimuli based on the auditory oddball paradigm. Genotyping was obtained by using the real-time PCR technique.
Depressive symptoms are associated with cognitive-functional impairment in normal aging older adults (NA). However, less is known about this effect on people with mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and mild Alzheimer's disease dementia (AD). We investigated this relationship along with the NA-MCI-AD continuum by reanalyzing a previously published dataset.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDement Neuropsychol
January 2016
Objective: The assessment of visuospatial abilities and memory using tasks such as the Taylor Complex Figure Task (TCFT) is biased for older adults with low formal education. We devised a "Simplified" version of the TCFT designed to assess older adults with low educational background and provide preliminary evidence of its psychometric properties.
Methods: We evaluated a heterogeneous sample of healthy older adults and patients with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease dementia using the simplified TCFT and other neuropsychological measures.
Previous studies suggest that executive functions influence the performance on visuoconstructional tasks. This study aims to investigate whether the relationship between planning ability and the copy of complex figures is mediated by distinct components of executive functions (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To propose and evaluate the psychometric properties of a multidimensional measure of activities of daily living (ADLs) based on the Katz and Lawton indices for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
Methods: In this study, 85 patients with MCI and 93 with AD, stratified by age (≤ 74 years, > 74 years), completed the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Geriatric Depression Scale, and their caregivers completed scales for ADLs. Construct validity (factor analysis), reliability (internal consistency), and criterion-related validity (receiver operating characteristic analysis and logistic regression) were assessed.
Background And Objectives: The neuropsychological exam plays a central role in the assessment of elderly patients with cognitive complaints. It is particularly relevant to differentiate patients with mild dementia from those subjects with mild cognitive impairment. Formal education is a critical factor in neuropsychological performance; however, there are few studies that evaluated the psychometric properties, especially criterion related validity, neuropsychological tests for patients with low formal education.
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